ArvinMeritor has decided to place greater emphasis on the sales and marketing of the FreedomLine automated manual transmission by ZF Friedrichshafen in Germany. ArvinMeritor will discontinue manufacturing Meritor manual transmissions, effective in January 2007, due to dynamics that have severely limited the company's addressable markets.
The company will honor all current manual transmission orders placed with ArvinMeritor, and all orders received before September 2006 provided they are to be delivered no later than January 2007. All Meritor manual transmissions sold and in service will continue to be supported by the company's sales, service, and aftermarket parts support teams.
Production of the FreedomLine will remain in ArvinMeritor's Laurinburg NC facility.